Costumes - Mildred(final)

These are picture of the drawing for Milred's costume. I was heavily influenced by dress worn by Mary Pickford in the twenties, as well as a picture of a wedding dress that I found in a magazine. I wanted Mildred to have a tighter form fitting dress, as well as something flowy for the scene in the boiler room and was able to comprimise with a dress that was form fitting while having a sheer overlay that was not. There is red detailing on the dress.
There is also another sketch of the parasol which also included red detailing within the lace.

Costumes - Aunt(final)

The first picture is the final drawing for the Aunt. Her dress is of the Victorian style, but overly opulent and decadent, and she overcompenstates for everything. There are a few close ups of the drawing before it was coloured, to show the bow in the waist of the dress, and the overuse of ruffles and lace on the entire dress. The last five pictures are the top five pictures from the 'ugly dress' contest I held with my friends and family. I photocopied more then fifteen copies of the sketched drawing of the dress, and had people help me come up with a terrible and ugly palette for the dress. In the end, I chose brown, green and yellow to follow the palette I was already going with.

Costumes - Long(final)

This is the drawing for Long. He wears a similar costumes to Yank while in the bowels of the ship, but when in the city, he dressed up to the best of his ability. He wears brown pants and a matching brown suit, unironed and a little wrinkled, as well as an unironed yellow shirt. Though wrinkled, his clothes are clean and well kept.

Costumes - Yank(final)

This is the drawing for Yank. He pants should be khaki, but they came out looking almost like camoflauge. They need to be dirty, as well as his singlet needs to be dirty and missed up as well. His suspenders would just be black, probably having some dirty on them as well.

Props(final)

The first prop is the shovel. It is purposely short(though too short in this picture), as when doing my research, I found that many coal shovels were shorter, and not as long as a standard gardening shovel, or snow shovel. This would be the shovel in immaculate form, though I do want there to be a variation in condition of the shovels.
The second prop is the parasol. I'm not a wonder artist, but the parasol is suppose to be made of lace, with red detailing, to match the red in Mildred's dress. I would the handle on the parasol to be short as well(another detail from my research), with three red balls on the end of the handle. There is another sketch of the parasol on Mildred's costume sketch.
The third prop is a bottle of Jack Daniels. It would have an old time label, one from the twenties. All bottles in the bowels of the ship(on pictured here) would have a bit of wear and tatter on the label, while the one that would be in the I.W.W office would be pristine. The bottle would be corked, rather then a screw top.
The final prop is the binoculars that I would like Mildred's Aunt to have. They would be made of ivory, mother of pearl and gold. They would have the handle on them so she would be able to use them as a physical prop as well, waving them about and such poking at Mildred, etc.

Palettes

These are the two palettes, one of the stage, one for the costumes and props.
The stage palette is the grey paint that I used, and I also provided pieces of the materials I used, both painted and unpainted for a visual on them.
On the prop and costume palette, it shows the colours used for the items. Aside from black and brown, only three colours are present within the palette, green, yellow and red.

Black Box Maquette - Scale Set

This set was built with popsicle sticks and wooden skewers. The deck was painted over with clear nail polish, with a few coats, to attempt to give it a shiny deck appearance, but the wood kept soaking up the varnish, and the deck looks more like wet wood, then shiny unfortunately. Only the deck is wood, while everything below deck level is painted grey, as it would be all steel below the decks. I spent a good deal of time attempting to build scale models of the stairs, all attempts failing miserabley, as my hands aren't very dexterious with small objects and I kept snapping and bending all materials I tried using.
The only change between this set at the first, is the balcony does not extend on the left side of the stage, but stops and has a lowered step down to the exit, making the deck symetical.

Black Box Maquette - Whitefoam Core Set

These are images of the white foamcore set. The main piece of the set is a steel frame structure, which has been stripped down from my original design idea to open up the set so view is not as obstructed. There is a balcony to the back which is used for scene two which takes place on the deck of the ship. There is a stair case the leads down from the deck to the bowels of the ship, which would not be present all the time, but would actually be rolled in from underneath and put in place, or would use a mechanism to roll out to let Mildred down. Also on this set is a deck chair on the deck, and some box from the men to sit on the forcastle.

Black Box Maquette - No Set

These are images of the stage, with no set pieces. On the overhead view, you can faintly make out the area of the audience that has been shaded, to represent where in the audience seats would not be sold due to view obstruction.

Sound and Lighting

The lighting will vary from scene to scene. The main points of the lighting will be the boiler room scene, in which there will need to be backlights in reds and oranges underneath the balcony to represent the furnaces in which the men are shoveling coal into. There will also need to be bright white light placed in certain areas, so that when Yank sees Mildred, they can shine through and around her giving her the ethereal appearance. Another key lighting moment in the play is the jail scene, where the lighting grid will have to be set up to show the jail cells through the lighting, to help elevate obstruction from using set pieces. The final key scene with lighting is the scene in the jail, where only spot lights to look like street lights in small pools will be on the stage, with the gorilla only slightly lit, with a spotlight that will rise as the other lights go down on Yank and the gorilla at the very end. 

Key moments in sound for the play will be the scene on the deck, with the sound of wind and the sea, played from only one location of the theatre, so it travels to give the feel that they are actually as sea. Another key moment will be the boiler scene, where they will have to be the scrape of metal and coal, the banging and clanging, the chugging of the ship, the men chanting, etc. Another key moment will be the zoo. It would be nice to be able to get an almost echo effect, to sound as if he’s actually in the monkey house of a zoo as well as the banging and clanging and the screeching of the other monkeys in the zoo. 

Costumes and Makeup

For Yank and Long, their hair will be cut short. Long will be a bit better kempt then Yank, his hair clean, no stubble, especially in the city scene, where Yank will have less kempt hair and stubble throughout the entire play. 

The Aunt will have her hair bound tight about her head, more then likely curled. She’ll have rouged cheeks, and a brownish tinted lipstick. 

Mildred will wear her raven coloured hair down, hanging to about her mid-back. It will be lightly curled to the era. She will wear a bright red lipstick, to compliment the red in her dress and her parasol, and her cheeks will be lightly rouged. Her eye makeup, while light, will be dark and smoky. 

James and the Giant Peach

The characters of Spiker and Sponge from James and the Giant Peach reminded me a lot of the relationship between Mildred and her Aunt. Both clips are a little under ten minutes in length, but I've detailed where the two characters actually appear for quick viewing of them.

Video One

1:52 - 2:17
2:58 - 2:41 (most important!!!)
3:56 - 4:46
4:55 - 5:45
9:05 - 9:40

Video Two

3:00 - 6:56

Costumes - Yank and Long(research)

Yank, throughout the entire play will wear the same thing. Dirty dungarees, dirty white singlet, suspenders(that go from being worn properly while working and in the city, to just hanging about his waist while he's in the forecastle and the zoo), as well as a scruffed up jacket for the city that he loses along the way.
Long will have the same dirty dungarees and white singlet for the scenes that take place within the ship, but when they reach the city, he'll wear dark pants, preferably brown, with a yellow wrinkled shirt and brown vest.
Neither will wear hats, though the men within the city all will.

Costumes - Aunt(research)

The Aunt, while rich and pompous, I feel would probably not wear the fashions of the time. I think she would still be wearing the fashions of her victory days, from around the turn of the century. She would be very overdone, covered in lace and ruffles and buttons and many layers of silk and colours. The gown would be very decadent and opulant, but terribly overindulgent and out of style and fashion, even for a woman on her age.